Grossology: Many Mutations
by The Nerdinator
Summary: A few months after the series, a class field trip to a nuclear power plant seemingly ends Ty's life when he takes a fall into a radioactive waste storage unit. But he's not dead - far from it. And when a new enemy rises to try and take over the world, Ty must use his new superpowers to stop Peptos before it's too late. And before lunch.
1. Cold Open

Clarksburg is a city located on the coast of Massachusetts. It's an obscure city, but of a decent size, population's about 36,000.

But unlike other cities, Clarksburg has villains. And I don't mean your normal criminals; I mean people straight out of the comic books, so intelligent they can do things normally impossible.

And unlike those in the comic books, Clarksburg's villains have more...scientific themes. As in, the icky parts of science. Don't ask me why.

Luckily, Clarksburg has a way to contain these villains and prevent them from escaping to the outside world: The Bureau of Grossology, a top-secret government organization dedicated to keeping these diabolical villains in check. Teenage siblings Ty and Abby Archer are presently the two field agents engrossed (heh, pun) in their work.

And nothing would change that...right?

(Cue theme song)


	2. Permission to Slip

"I can't believe it," Abby said. "It's the last day of school, and we have to spend it going to a stupid nuclear power plant."

"It's not all bad," Ty replied. "They're a cleaner source of power than fossil fuels, and until we figure out how to make solar cheap, they're the best we've got."

"Yeah, but they're basically legal nukes. Besides, it's not like they'll turn us into radioactive mutants with a dozen superpowers."

"That would be AWESOME. Unusual, but awesome."

"You know what else is unusual? I haven't seen Paige all morning."

"Why does it concern you?" Ty asked. "I thought you hated her guts."

"I do, but normally she'd make some snide remark about my clothing by now."

"Hmm..." Ty thought for a moment before saying, "Come to think of it, we've seen less of her than normal for the past month. And when we have...she's nicer than she was before that."

"Her parents probably yelled at her or something. It's not like she joined the you-know-what and we don't know about it. Which reminds me..."

The two sophomores ducked into a hallway where they were sure no one could see them. Abby took out her Grossometer and turned it on.

"Hey guys," Lab Rat said, his face filling the tiny screen.

"Any villain activity yet?" Abby asked, hopefulness in her voice.

"Negative."

"Dangit!" Abby stomped her foot. "It's been three weeks since the villains even tried to do anything. Lab Rat, I'm starting to lose it!"

"That makes three of us..." Ty commented.

Lab Rat ignored that and said, "I know. I've been so bored I've actually made a new project."

"Really? When will we get to see it?" Ty wanted to know.

"He'll be done tomorrow morning."

"Well, that's good, I gue-" Abby did a double take. "Did you say 'he'?"

Lab Rat was about to explain what he meant when a noise came from somewhere in the Gag Lab - the sound of something being knocked over. "You know what? I'll call you back," Lab Rat said. The transmission ended.

"We should be getting to the bus," Abby said.

As they joined the crowd of teenagers leaving the building, Ty said to his sister, "I hope I get to sit next to Naomi. Now _that_ would be awesome."

"When are you going to tell her you like her?" Abby asked, shaking her head. "Seriously, it's been two years now."

"Nineteen months, actually."

"Whatever! Point is, you have to tell her sooner or later. There's a long line of guys who'd want to date her."

"I know. That's the other reason I want to sit next to her."

Luckily, Naomi was sitting alone, so Ty got his wish. As for Abby, she got stuck with Andy - which she was not too happy about.

* * *

After an eventful day, the students started heading back to the bus at 2:45. The way back took them over a radioactive waste storage unit on a rickety, narrow steel bridge.

"This'll be torn down six weeks from now because of safety code violations," a worker explained. "We haven't had the money to do so for years because the equipment needed kept getting more expensive. Watch your step - parts of this bridge are pretty badly rusted through."

Everyone took caution with walking on the bridge. Ty, who was at the very end of the line, did so in an almost comical fashion, carefully looking for parts that weren't rusted, then setting one foot after the other on them.

"Will you hurry up?!" Abby snapped.

"I'm TRYING to not get killed!" Ty growled in response. Now he wasn't paying attention, and stepped on a segment of bridge that was the most corroded of all. It gave way, and broke off with an audible snap.

Now there was one part of the bridge (Ty wasn't too far from the end), the other part, and four feet of air between them.

Ty looked down, then back up.

"Oh, poop."

He fell. Down, down, getting closer and closer to the 10-foot-deep pool of churning contaminated water.

"Ty!" Abby shrieked, immediately sorry for rushing her brother.

"I regret nothiiiiiiing!" Ty yelled as he descended, and ended the fall splashing into the pool.

Now everyone was staring in horror at the storage tank.

"Turn off the agitator! There's a kid in there!" the worker from before called to his fellow employees.

The water in the pool stopped moving.

It was now very, very, very still.

Abby began breathing in short, rapid breaths.

"Abby..." a teacher said, walking up to her. "I'm sorry, but your brother...is dead."

"N-no..."

Sure, she and Ty had a rocky relationship, but they had a true sibling bond, forged through sixteen years of Abby's life (which was all of Ty's). And now all that was taken away in a single moment. Unable to suppress the urge to cry, Abby began weeping.

Everyone looked down in mourning. Somewhere in the crowd, Paige took off her hat and placed it over her heart.

* * *

 **AN: Sad, right? And I'll admit, killing off a main character (other than an antagonist you absolutely can't sympathize with) is my number one "don't" of fiction.**

 **But the trope here is not Killed off for Real; it's Disney Death. And if you've read TvTropes, you'll know what I mean...**

 **So go to TvTropes! And stay tuned for future chapters!**


	3. From the Nineties to Now

"We're sorry it happened too, Abby," Petunia said, trying to soothe her daughter. They were in the living room, with Abby lying on the couch, eyes red from crying.

"You don't understand. If I hadn't rushed him, he'd still be here," Abby sniffed.

"Maybe we should give her some time to herself," Harvey suggested. Just as the two adults began to leave, a familiar _da-da-da-do-DAH_ , _da-da-da-do-DAH_ filled the room. Harvey and Petunia turned around, and Abby immediately sat up, pulled out her grossometer, and opened it to reveal Lab Rat and The Director, both in the Gag Lab.

"Guys! This isn't a good time!" Abby hissed.

"I understand if you're still grieving," The Director said calmly.

"That's not what I meant!"

"Anyway," Lab Rat said, cutting her off before she could explain, "I did some analyses and it turns out Ty had a one-in-ten-thousand chance of surviving, and an even lower chance of developing superpowers."

"He fell fifty feet into toxic waste!"

"Fifty-one feet, actually."

"Whatever! It doesn't change the fact that he's DEAD! Or that I'M THE REASON HE IS!" Abby began tearing up again.

"Well, I just so happened to have made something for a time like this. A device that can bring back the dead. The Director and I will have to go retrieve the corpse so we can proceed with Ty's resurrection. Unless he turns out to be alive, that is." He paused, then asked, "So why isn't it a good time to call exactly?"

"Because my parents are here." And with that, she turned the grossometer around so the screen faced her parents, who were very confused as to what just happened.

The Director and Lab Rat immediately realized what they just did.

"MAYDAY! MAYDAY! OUR COVER'S BEEN BLOWN! A-OO-GAH, A-OO-GAH!" Lab Rat cried out as he ran around in a panicked circle.

Then The Director realized something else, and grabbed Lab Rat before he could continue running. "Wait... Harvey?"

"Ron?..." Harvey and Petunia walked closer so they could see the screen better. Harvey smiled. "Ron, old buddy, it _is_ you! How's it been?"

"Fine, fine. It may interest you to know that your children are - well, okay, one of them _was_ \- our current field agents. Exceptionally good agents, I may add."

"That's amazing!" Petunia exclaimed. "I guess the career must run in the family."

The three adults laughed at their little joke. Lab Rat was confused, and Abby decided to find out what the heck was going on.

"Okay, hold up," Abby said, getting the adults' attention. "You guys _know each other_? And more importantly-" she turned to her parents - "you guys _were Grossologists_?"

"Yes," Harvey said. "When the bureau first opened in '85, we were among its first agents. It's how your mother and I met, actually. The story about the café we told you? Only part of it."

"So...why don't you work there now?"

"We had no choice," Petunia replied. "In 1997, we discovered that all the villains we had fought either reformed or were sent to prisons across the country. Without proper funding, the bureau had to be temporarily shut down. It was already getting hard to have it and our regular jobs, anyway."

Lab Rat cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him. He said, "I don't mean to be a bother, but the project I've been working on for the last three weeks will be at your residence at any moment. Also-"

There was a thump at the front door of the Archer residence, followed by the sound of locks being unlocked.

"I kinda equipped him with your keys."

The door opened. Now there were footsteps.

"Everyone," Lab Rat said proudly, "meet Jetpack."

And then the Archers saw just who Jetpack was, as a brownish-orange figure entered the room.


	4. Meet Jetpack

Jetpack, as it turned out, was a robot. Unlike any robot ever seen.

He had a head about the size of a grapefruit, with a toothless mouth and a pair of eyes that bore golden irises. In place of ears was a pair of antennae, one on each side of his head, and in place of a nose was a coiled proboscis. His arms and legs were covered in ribbed rubber tubing. Jetpack had four fingers (among them an opposable thumb) per hand, and his feet? Only three toes, two facing forward and one facing back, attached to feet shaped like narrow, rounded triangles.

Abby could tell that Lab Rat based Jetpack's design on the monarch butterfly, as evidenced by the pattern on the six-foot-tall robot's wings, which were folded back but had an unfolded wingspan of roughly five feet. And judging from the pattern and coloring, Jetpack was a male. Jetpack's overall body color, from his antennae to his tail-like abdomen that jutted from the bottom of his thorax, was reddish-brown, and the pattern on his wings included two shades of yellow, brown, and orange. On his narrow chest was a panel, about 4x9 inches, with the markings of a slime suit and a rectangular G painted on it in black.

"Hey, you must be Abby," Jetpack said. Abby wasn't expecting his voice to sound so human. "I've heard a lot about you, even though I'm just a day old."

Through the screen of the grossometer, Lab Rat grinned. "Jetpack here is the most complex machine to ever walk the Earth," he said, pride in his voice. "He's fully self-aware and capable of a wide range of human emotion. I wasn't able to give him all the intelligence I wanted to...but I guess you can't win them all."

"Win all of what?"

"See what I mean?"

"It's a nice demonstration, Lab Rat," The Director interrupted, "but I just got notified by the chief of police that someone has robbed the local spa's mudbaths of their, well, mud. Abby, we're sending you and Jetpack to investigate."

" _Finally_ , the villains do something!" Abby exclaimed. Then her expression changed and she added, "But I don't have my slimesuit on me."

"Don't worry, I brought it along just in case," Jetpack said. He opened the panel, revealing a compartment built into his chest. Out of it he pulled a yellow-and-black vinyl body suit, then closed it up.

"Uh...how were you able to fit that in there?"

Jetpack shrugged. Abby decided to not think too hard about it and went upstairs to change. When she came back down, she found her parents chatting with Jetpack.

"So you really used to be a jetpack?" Petunia was asking.

"I don't know much, but I think so," the robot replied.

"C'mon, Jetpack, let's go," Abby said, slipping on her goggles and heading for the front door. "Crime doesn't rest, you know. Oh wait - you don't."

"Abby!" Harvey scolded.

"What? It's true!" She sighed and figured it was best to leave. Jetpack followed her out. Once outside, she asked him, "So how are we going to get to the crime scene? Do we get the GRS-1, or-"

"No need for that," Jetpack said, cutting her off. "I can fly and lift up to 200 pounds with my legs."

"Oh. I guess that's why Lab Rat built you to resemble an insect, then."

Jetpack opened his wings, then began to flap them until he was about six feet in the air. Abby grabbed what would be his ankles, and Jetpack closed his toes over her wrists. After making sure Abby was secure, Jetpack flapped harder and harder, then took off at a very high speed.

* * *

On arriving at the spa, Jetpack flew lower and lower, but remained at his current speed. Abby let go and landed on her feet just before she hit the wall. Jetpack wasn't so fortunate, and flew right into the wall.

"You okay?" she asked.

Jetpack responded by pulling himself from the wall, completely unscathed, and Abby commented, "Hm. I guess you can't feel pain."

"What's that?"

Abby rolled her eyes. "Let's just get this mission over with."

She walked into the building, which was surrounded by yellow tape. A police officer eyed her suspiciously, but Abby showed her badge and the officer let her through. Unable to find a badge in his chest compartment, Jetpack opted to instead pull out a squid, causing the officer to faint. Jetpack checked to see if anyone else was around, then quietly put the squid back into his compartment and closed it.

Abby found some muddy footprints leading from the now-empty mud baths. Using her grossometer to identify the shoe size, she got a pretty good estimate as to who the culprit was.

"Sloppy Joe. For sure," Abby told Jetpack. "I assume Lab Rat told you about the villains we fight, right?"

"Yup."

"Well, I guess we'll just go to his lair and exact justice. I really wish Ty was here to see it," she added, shedding a tear.

"What's wrong with your eye?"

"Nothing, you - wait. What's that doing here?" Jetpack turned around to see a puddle of orangish goo on the floor. On closer inspection, it turned out to be vomit.

"Sloppy Joe could always handle his own stink," Abby noted. "So why would - JETPACK!"

Jetpack was presently eating the vomit off the floor. "Yum," he said. "Tuna on whole wheat with carrot sticks and an apple. I have no idea what any of those are, but they're delicious!"

While the robot hungrily ate, Abby quickly pulled out her grossometer and turned it on. "Lab Rat!" she cried. "I think Jetpack has a bug. He's eating puke!"

"He's supposed to do that, actually," Lab Rat replied nonchalantly.

" _WHAT_?!"

"It's a design feature. In case you haven't noticed yet, Jetpack has no teeth. And he's biofuel powered, so he needs to subsist on an all-liquid diet. Vomit is basically predigested food, so it's easy to eat. And," he continued, "Jetpack's also a combat droid. He uses hydrochloric acid as a liquid projectile shot from one of two chambers in his abdomen, but its pH is way too low for him to consume it directly. Vomit is less acidic than pure HCl, so Jetpack can just eat vomit and extract the acid from it that way."

Jetpack was finished eating now. He let out a satisfied burp.

"I get it, but it's just...so...gross." Abby shuddered.

"Hey, you tolerate being covered in feces just fine, and poop is even more disgusting and unsanitary than barf is," Lab Rat retorted.

"Lab Rat! Let's go already," The Director called from offscreen. "Ty's cadaver isn't going to fetch itself, you know."

Lab Rat sighed. "I'll see you later." The transmission ended.

Abby thought for a moment about why there would be vomit involved in one of Sloppy Joe's schemes - especially if it consisted of things other than what he normally ate - when she saw The Detective at the door, who notified her of another robbery, this time at the insectarium. She and Jetpack went as they came, ready to fight a villain - if they could find one, that is.


	5. How to Morph Into a Dragon

Having arrived at the power plant, Lab Rat and The Director looked down into the tank Ty had fallen into. The bridge had been fully replaced now, so there was a much lower possibility that they would meet Ty's fate themselves.

"Well, here it is," Lab Rat said, staring down at the contaminated water below.

"Good luck, Lab Rat," The Director said, patting his back.

"Why do I have to go down?"

"I'm the director of the Bureau of Grossology. I'm not exactly expendable."

"I have to do everything, and frankly I'm tired of it. _You_ go down."

While the two men were arguing, there was something else going on, deep inside the tank.

* * *

Lab Rat's prediction had been right. Ty was still alive, but unconscious and in a sleep-like state, just floating near the bottom of the tank.

Ty opened his eyes. He was awake now.

He did not notice that his left arm was rapidly becoming more muscular and growing scales.

* * *

"Fine, we'll both go," The Director said crossly, compromising with Lab Rat.

Before they could secure the hoist that they would use to descend into the depths, though, the water in the tank began rippling furiously.

"What the-" Lab Rat began, while The Director tied the rope to the railing of the bridge.

A dark shape burst out of the water, flying higher and higher. It flew through the skylight, shattering the glass and leaving a sizable hole, then flew off into the south until it disappeared out of sight.

"Whoa. Did you see that?" Lab Rat asked.

"See what?"

"This thing just flew out of the water and-" Lab Rat stood there, dumbfounded. "Paige was right. I _do_ need to get out more."

He decided to forget about it and pulled out a small scanner. After a few seconds, he said, "Um, sir? There's no sign of Ty's body anywhere."

"Can't be." The Director thought a moment and added, "Perhaps it moved down the waste pipe."

"Maybe...it was the thing I saw?"

"Squirfenherder, we need to get you back to the lab. You're seeing things again."

But The Director had no idea how right Lab Rat was.

* * *

The dark shape flew over the city. Said shape, it turns out, was a dragon, forty feet long with a thirty-foot wingspan. It was dark blue in color, with six long horns coming out of the back of its head, three on each side, with a seventh, small horn on its nose.

It arrived at the beach on the edge of town, and landed on the rocky ground.

Ty then realized something was off. And by off I mean _really_ off.

"Wait," he said. He lumbered over to the water and saw his reflection. He was a mythological creature.

"I'm...a dragon?" he asked himself, rearing up and sitting on his haunches. "This...is... AWESOME!"

Ty laughed. "I'm alive, _and_ I can shapeshift! Hmm, I wonder if I can do the firebreathing thing, too. Well, only one way to find out." He took a deep breath, felt something inside his mouth twitch, and exhaled a majestic blue flame.

"Oooooh...wait until Abby sees this," he said in awe.

He heard a car pull up to the beach. "But I can't let anyone else see this! Oh man, if only I could turn invisible too." As soon as he said that, his body became completely transparent. Looking at his arms, he remarked, "Well what do you know, I can turn invisible."

His stomach growled. Ty remembered he hadn't eaten in eighteen hours.

And Ty flew off, an invisible dragon, back into the city, to find some sort of food fit for a giant reptile.


	6. Disappearing Act

"I don't get it," Abby said. She and Jetpack were walking away from what had to be the 10th crime scene that day. "The villains never barfed during a heist. And the composition of the puke piles are different from what they normally eat...some part of me thinks that there's a new bad guy out there trying to pass themself off as the ones we know of."

"All I know is that I've eaten so much bleurgh that I'm almost able to activate my acid cannon," Jetpack replied simply. "Just one more stomach's worth and-"

"You know, I thought I could never be truly grossed out until I met you."

"If Ty were here, he'd most likely think this exchange is funny," Jetpack mentioned offhandedly.

"What do you know about Ty? _YOU NEVER MET HIM_!"

"Oops," Jetpack said, recoiling a little, a look of slight fear in his yellow eyes. "I wasn't aware that was a sore spot for you. My bad." Now there was tension in the air, and the robot decided to let Abby brood.

True, he hadn't really met Ty, but he _did_ use to be Ty's jetpack, so he had some rudimentary idea of who Ty was before his activation. The bulk of his knowledge of the guy - and Grossology in general - came from video clips Lab Rat had shown him. So he did, in fact, know a little about Ty, but not as much as Abby would.

Jetpack quickly realized that Abby likely blamed herself for Ty's death. Death - a foreign concept for a robot, as if his physical body was destroyed, Jetpack's consciousness would still survive in cyberspace, trapped until he could find a new one. Humans, he decided, were fragile in more ways than one.

And then he spotted the perfect opportunity to change the subject.

"Hey, aren't those footprints from the place we just visited?"

"Huh?" Abby asked, not brooding anymore. She looked at his extended hand, then saw exactly what he was pointing to - a trail of shoe-shaped marks, leading down the street.

"C'mon! Maybe it's a clue to where all the villains are going." she said, and took off, following the prints. Jetpack wasn't exactly meant for running, but he did his best to keep up.

The footprints lead the two to the edge of town - specifically, to a manhole. Abby then noticed that footprints from all the other crime scenes were there too, all converging at this one spot. Lifting the cover, she stared down into a forgotten part of the sewer system.

"Can you fit through here?" Abby asked the robot. "Because I think your wings will make you too wide and you'll get stuck."

Jetpack adjusted his wing joints and folded his wings flat against his back, making him sorta look like a moth, and positioned them until he was sure he could fit.

"Never mind."

They descended down, down into the depths, into a large brick-lined sewage pipe (as in, 20 feet wide) covered in green slime mold, following the trail until it stopped at the back wall, where the pipe had been closed off.

"Odd," Abby said. "They couldn't have disappeared...Jetpack?" she asked, suddenly getting a glazed look in her eyes.

"Yeah?" the robot asked.

"Is it just me, or do you see rainbows?"

"What's a rainbow?"

Abby blinked. Once. And when she opened her eyes again, they looked...different. Her eyes were completely silvery-gray, with concentric circles of a much darker shade. She entered a zombie-like state, and moaned, like a zombie. She wasn't a zombie, though.

"Um...hello?" Jetpack asked, waving his arm in front of her face. No reaction. "This is getting weird. Which brings us to an important question: what the hey is going on? Maybe there's something on the grossometer that can help...mind if I borrow yours? I can't find mine." Abby was still in a trance, so Jetpack slipped the device out of her belt pocket, and she never noticed. Jetpack turned around, turned the grossometer on, and tried to figure out how to use it. "Let's see...nope...nope...I don't _want_ Starbucks, whatever that is..."

He did not notice Abby open an inconspicuous panel mounted on the back wall. Nor did he notice her typing in a password that opened a large door, close the panel, or that she walked through the doorway and vanished, going the same way the trail did.

At least, he didn't until the door closed, letting out a thump.

Jetpack turned around. Abby was gone.

"Abby?...Okay, that's it, I'm going back to the lab, because this is getting creepy."

With that, he put Abby's grossometer into his chest compartment and climbed the ladder up and out of the sewer. He replaced the manhole cover, unfolded his wings, and flew towards the Gag Lab.

Which, unfortunately, was at the other side of the city.

* * *

Ty was visible now, a large cryptid in broad daylight. Well, considering he was presently in a forest, it wasn't exactly broad daylight...

"That roadkilled deer sure tasted good," Ty said, burping. "Helps that this morph has fire breath to kill off disease-carrying bacteria - and that I didn't eat the parts that were sure to make me sick, like the intestines."

He walked forwards a little, enough so that he was a bit out of the woods (literally). He spotted an unusual figure dart across the sky. Ty got on his hind legs and squinted to get a better look. Conveniently, his left hand morphed itself into a pair of binoculars. Ty saw this, commented, "Must be another superpower," and lifted his arm so he could see through the lenses of his binoculars-hand.

He saw a figure - a robot that looked like a large butterfly that had been seriously anthropomorphized. On a panel located on its chest was a black rectangular G - the symbol for the Bureau of Grossology.

"I guess that's Lab Rat's new project," Ty said. His hand returned to a normal dragon forelimb. Ty turned himself invisible and flew off, in the direction the robot - whose name, unbeknownst to Ty, was Jetpack - was headed.

To the lab.

* * *

Ty arrived in the hangar where the GRS-1 was kept. He deactivated his invisibility and demorphed, not wanting to cause a panic with the form of a dragon.

Ty noticed that the mysterious robot wasn't there yet. He was early.

And then he noticed something truly shocking.

A boy, about Ty's own age, was cleaning off the GRS-1's lower windshield. The boy was clearly a member of Grossology, as he wore a slimesuit resembling Ty's own, only brown whereas Ty's was orange. He had longish blond hair, with long bangs that came just above his brown eyes.

The boy noticed Ty and stopped wiping the glass with the towel he was holding.

Ty immediately recognized him.

"Hey Ty," Chester said. "Good to see you're actually alive."


	7. The First Supervillain

"How...how come you're not Kid Rot anymore?" Ty asked.

"It's a long story," Chester replied. "About five weeks ago, I drank some water from a stream...and it turned out there was giardia in it...and then I upchucked Kid Rot...and I defeated him...and a few days later I ended up working here."

"You couldn't have defeated him on your own."

"I didn't. Paige and Naomi were there too."

"So I take it they're on the team, too...no wonder Paige has been acting differently."

"Yeah, I guess she got traumatized by the prospect of almost getting eaten alive by a chimeric parasite," Chester said.

Ty shrugged. "Compared to what I've been through recently, that's pretty tame." He walked off into a corridor until he disappeared from Chester's view. He changed into his slimesuit and came out, to see the mysterious robot from earlier had arrived.

"Are you that project Lab Rat's been working on?" Ty asked.

Jetpack nodded. "I'm Jetpack. I used to be your jetpack."

"I was wondering where that went." To Chester, he said, "Should I show the others I'm here?"

"It would be best. Try not to surprise them, though."

As they walked out of the hangar, Ty commented, "The lab sure is bigger than I remember it. Has it been expanded recently?"

"Yup."

* * *

"I could've sworn I saw something," Lab Rat muttered. Standing on his left were two teenage girls. One wore a pink slimesuit and had her blond hair tied up in a ponytail, while the other, a ginger, wore a turquoise-colored slimesuit. The Director was on his right.

"Maybe you did, and maybe you didn't. We just don't know whether or not you're hallucinating again," Paige told him. Spotting Chester and Jetpack entering the room, she decided to change the subject. "Hey Chester. What up?"

"Well, I'm finished with washing the GRS-1, Jetpack's back from wherever he was, and someone else is back from the dead," he replied.

"What do you mean by that last one?"

"He means me," came another voice.

Four heads turned around to see Ty strutting into the room.

Naomi rushed over and practically tackled Ty the way she hugged him. "Don't ever scare me like that again!" she snapped. Her expression softened. "I missed you so much," she said, cuddling him.

"Me too," Ty replied. Naomi released him from her grip, and Ty stood before them, a proud (and partially insane) figure.

"Was that thing that came out of the power plant you?" Lab Rat inquired.

"I was shapeshifted into a dragon. Who else could it be?"

"Told you," Lab Rat said to The Director. Turning to Ty, he said, "So, you've got superpowers. Mind if I do a scan of your DNA?"

"Not at all."

Lab Rat gave Ty a Q-tip, which the latter used to swab the inside of his mouth with. He gave the now-slimy object back to the analyst, who placed it into a specialized scanner just for that.

"You know, it really is fortunate you got powers," Paige told Ty.

"And why is that?"

"If you survived, it was either superpowers or terminal cancer."

"Geeze...so why didn't anyone tell me and Abby you guys are Grossologists now?"

"Knowing your sister, she'd probably freak out if she found her longtime rival is also her coworker."

"True..."

There was a beep from the computer, drawing their attention. Lab Rat gestured for them to come over, and said, "Ty, what powers do you know of that you have?"

"Let's see," Ty replied, and began counting off on his fingers. "There's shapeshifting, invisibility, and I believe I can turn my hands into gadgets..."

"There's a lot more than those," Lab Rat replied, pulling up a file from the DNA scan. "According to this, you also have mind control resistance, superstrength, duplication, the ability to detach body parts painlessly, spontaneous regeneration of lost body parts (including your brain), spontaneous generation and absorption of extra body parts, extreme elasticity and contortion of your body in general, the ability to turn into an ooze when put through great physical trauma like getting thrown into a wall, and extreme omnivory."

"What does that last one do?"

"It lets you consume and digest any material without getting sick or injured," Lab Rat said matter-of-factly.

"Which brings us to an important question," Jetpack announced. "What the heck was in that stuff Ty fell into?"

"It doesn't really matter," Naomi said, placing her hand on Ty's shoulder. "What does is that Ty's now practically indestructible."

"If only Abby could see me now," Ty said. "Wait - where _is_ Abby?"

"Jetpack, mission status please," The Director ordered the robot.

"Well, Abby and I went under this manhole, and then Abby went all _mwuuuuuuuuah_ [Jetpack tried to do an impression of a zombie, despite not knowing what a zombie was] and I turn my back for a moment, and when I turn around again, she's gone!" the robot said, without stopping to take a breath (which he didn't need to do, being a robot).

"What else?"

"We kept finding all these piles of tasty bleurgh at the crime scenes."

Paige shuddered. "What's wrong? And what's 'bleurgh'?" Ty asked.

"Bleurgh is vomit. Jetpack eats vomit," she explained.

"Ew."

"So...vomit...and what sounds like mind control..." Chester said. "Doesn't sound like anybody we know. It might be a new villain entirely."

"I'm not just a villain, boy," spat out an unfamiliar voice.

No one had been paying attention to the communications screen during their conversations. Now they were. And they saw a very intimidating person.

He had orangish-brown hair and a thin mustache. He wore black, armor-like clothing, that looked almost metallic in composition. And one could see the hatred the man had in his eyes, the contempt for everyone.

"I," the man said, "am a supervillain. I am not just a criminal whose intelligence is high enough for them to do the normally impossible." He laughed a little, evil laugh. "A supervillain is much smarter, less sane, more ruthless, and all in all...more _dangerous_."

"Who are you, and what do you want?" Paige asked.

"My name," the man said, "is Richard Chlorofield. But I prefer to be known as Peptos. I called to tell you about how you can't stop my scheme for world domination."

"Which is?..."

"I have a rocket," Peptos said firmly, bringing up a little animation on the screen. It depicted a pale blue rocket, which did what Peptos told the Grossologists it would do. "I call it The Vomit Comet. It contains a concoction made of all the talents of the villains you know of - combined into one. When I launch it, it will fly into the upper atmosphere, where built-in duplicators will replicate this sludge until the planet is covered in four feet of it!" He laughed evilly. "And when that's done, I will open detoxification stations in the world's major cities. People want to be cleaned, they have to bow down to me first." The animation disappeared, showing Peptos' face again. "No more will they laugh at me, or ridicule me for who I used to be - because I will become _their worst nightmare_!"

"Wait," Lab Rat said. "The villains would never agree to do such a thing. Or, for that matter, help you do something that crazy."

"Ah, but I have prepared for that." He showed a picture of a large object that looked like a cross between a silvery organ (musical instrument, not body part) and a computer. "This mind control device will force anyone in range under my command. I've used it to get all the villains you know - well, almost all - to do my bidding. It doesn't work on me, but I _have_ snagged a certain teenager..."

"Abby!" Ty said.

Peptos chuckled. "You see, I have one of your number. And since you cannot go without being enslaved yourselves...you have failed!" He cackled, and the transmission ended.

The Director started to panic. "We're done for! Goodbye job, goodbye employees, goodbye cleanliness..."

"No, we aren't," Chester said. "Lab Rat's said that Ty can't be affected by mind control. Right?"

"Not even hypnosis will work on him," Lab Rat clarified.

"And we've already seen that mind control doesn't work on robots because Jetpack's here."

"Meep," Jetpack said.

"Yeah..." Lab Rat said, standing. "And Naomi naturally has a gene that blocks the electromagnetic waves the device is bound to use to brainwash people with."

"How did you find that out?" Naomi asked.

"You don't want to know," Lab Rat replied.

"Let's get this over with," Ty said. "Naomi? Jetpack? Follow me. We've got an evil butt to whoop today."


	8. Little Talks on the Fly

Ty had morphed back into a dragon, and Jetpack was flying beside him carrying Naomi with his feet. The way to the location where Abby had disappeared (and where Peptos was bound to be) was more or less straight, but on the other side of Clarksburg. Since Jetpack had a built-in location system, he essentially knew the way, and focused on flight. This left Naomi and Ty free to talk.

"I never thought you were team material, to be honest," Ty said. "You used to be so squeamish, but now...it's an incredible transformation."

" _I'll_ tell you what's incredible," Naomi replied. She wasn't wearing her glasses, as they would have gotten in the way of her goggles. "It turns out my dad and both of your parents were Grossologists back in the nineties."

"That would explain a lot of things."

Silence, except for the flapping of three sets of wings; two mechanical, one organic.

"Soooo...Paige says you have a crush on me. Is that true?"

"No." Naomi gave Ty a look, and he relented. "Okay, _fine_ , I do. Don't judge me." He looked away, trying to hide the shame on his reptilian face.

"You...do?"

Ty's eyes darted back to her, and he nodded uneasily.

"All that time..." Naomi said. "All that time, all those boys were hitting on me, and yet they never got what they wanted. Because I'm not looking for someone who's popular or athletic, like they were."

Ty's ears perked up. Well, they would if dragons had ears like mammals do. Ty turned to face Naomi, to see she was blushing.

"The guy I like...well, he's smart, and funny, and has a good sense of what's right. That guy, Ty, is you."

Now it was Ty's turn to blush. Although, because his skin was dark blue, his cheeks flushed a purplish-black.

"It might not be the best time, and right now we're two different species entirely," she continued, "but I'd really like to go out with you. As your official girlfriend."

"Whoever said dreams never come true never met us," Ty quipped.

Naomi giggled. "See, this is why I fell for you. Okay, part of it, but it's a pretty big part."

Jetpack interrupted them. "Sorry, I know this is great and all - despite me not knowing what that is -"

"Romantic love," Ty said. "You'll understand if Lab Rat ever builds a female robot."

"But our mission is at hand. We," he said, pointing to the ground, "are here."


	9. Ty's Plan

The three were standing on the ground now, looking at the manhole.

"Talk about an obvious disguise for a lair," Naomi said. She pulled out her grossometer and turned it on. "Okay guys, we're here. Now what?"

"We haven't exactly made a plan for that," Paige replied.

"What kind of secret agents are you? You don't prepare for anything," came an oddly familiar gravelly voice.

"Can it, Kid Rot!" Paige snapped, turning around to face the source of the voice. It was Kid Rot, as it turned out, in his true form: a brown entity resembling sludge. The center was raised up to form a rudimentary head, with a large mouth and two tiny eyes. Kid Rot, however, was inside a jar on one of the Gag Lab's shelves.

"Sorry about that," Paige said, turning back to face Naomi. "But seriously, do you guys have any idea about what we're going to do?"

"I do," Ty said. He pulled out a piece of paper, uncapped a black marker, and scribbled furiously. When he was done, he recapped the marker and showed the multiple diagrams he had drawn on the paper.

"First," he explained, "Naomi will pretend she's been caught by the mind control. Jetpack will put on a pair of handcuffs and pretend he's been captured. I assume you have those, right?"

"Yep," Jetpack replied, pulling a pair out of his chest compartment.

"I'll go invisible and we'll infiltrate the lair that way. We'll destroy the rocket's controls and render it unable to launch. Then we'll take out the mind control device, arrest Peptos, I'll show Abby that I'm alive, and if my calculations are correct, we should be able to do all this before lunch." He put the paper away (into hammerspace. Look it up).

"Seems like a good plan," Paige noted. "But what's with the lunch part?"

"I think my eat-anything power has affected my appetite."

The transmission ended.

* * *

The three went through the manhole and into the sewer. Once inside, Naomi cuffed Jetpack, and Ty turned invisible. Feigning hypnosis, Naomi stumbled around the sewer.

"C'mon...there's gotta be a type pad here somewhere," she said. After feeling around on the wall, she found it. "Now who would be stupid enough to put the code right over the pad?" she asked herself out loud. Sighing, she typed the code, opening the door to the lair. The three slipped through the doors, and the doors closed behind them.

The other side of the door resembled a cave, only better lit. Dark orange rock made up the walls, ceiling, and floors, with only the floor smooth. They passed a sentry robot, and Naomi did her best to make Jetpack look like a prisoner.

"Dangit," Jetpack muttered, as part of the plan. "I hate being captured."

The sentry bought it. However, its infrared vision detected Ty's heat signature, and it raised its blaster. Ty figured out what was going to happen, so he bit the robot's head off and ate it.

The three made their way to a large white elevator, got inside it, and went down.

* * *

After a long ride down, the small group got off, and saw something spectacular.

The underground lair was huge, at least 140 feet tall. Mind-controlled villains walked about left and right, preparing for the launch of The Vomit Comet, which was located in the center of the room. An immense, pale blue rocket with its name written on it in putrid green, on a blue launch pad surrounded by controls. On the right side of the room was a large arrangement of small hexagonal rooms linked by a winding stairwell. To the back was a ramp leading up to two large white doors. On the left was another ramp, leading up to another room behind closed doors - which a mind-controlled Abby was guarding.

"Must be where the mind-control device is," Ty whispered. "You guys make a distraction, I'll deactivate the rocket."

Jetpack figured out how to take off the handcuffs himself, and did that. While Naomi faked being mind-controlled and "fought" him, Ty slunk over to the rocket's control panel. Unfortunately for him, a mind-controlled Sloppy Joe walked into his gut, the force of impact like a punch.

Which deactivated Ty's invisibility.

"Dangit," the now very visible dragon said crossly.

"INTRUDER ALERT," a siren wailed. Naomi and Jetpack stopped their "battle" and found Ty looking around nervously.

"Ty!" they said in unison.

"Sloppy Joe walked into me! I didn't know that hitting my stomach would make me visible again!" Ty snapped.

An electric jolt came out of nowhere and zapped Naomi, knocking her unconscious. Jetpack started to run away, but tripped over a loose cable and fell on his face. Ty turned around to see Peptos, on a hoverscooter, cackling.

"You really thought you could outsmart me?" he asked. "You seem to forget that I am not just a villain - I am a _supervillain_!" Peptos pressed a button on the hoverscooter and a levitation beam shot out, picking up a rock, which he maneuvered over and knocked Ty on the head with. Ty demorphed.

"I was listening in on the little description of your powers," Peptos said, landing the hoverscooter, getting off, and walking over to Ty. "So I prepared a little something to negate them." He picked up the teenager, and as Naomi and Jetpack (who were just regaining consciousness) watched in horror, Peptos wrapped a metal collar-like device around Ty's neck, which melded itself shut.

"This," Peptos said, "is a power inhibitor. With this on, you will never use your superpowers again. Well, except for the mind-control resistance one - could never figure out how to disable that."

He looked at the Grossologists in the room (except Abby, who was still mind-controlled), and said three words that they wished they would never hear.

"You have failed."


	10. Escape

The chamber in the back of the lair, as it turned out, was meant for holding hostages, as it contained cells akin to that of a prison's, complete with iron bars. Peptos threw the three Grossologists into one, locked the door, and left to prepare for the rocket's launch.

"Man, his lair is elaborate," Ty complained as the three got up.

"It's not his," came a voice.

Someone came out of the dark corner of the cell. A blue-skinned man, in a pressurized suit with a glass dome, hovering above the floor.

"AAAAAAH!" Naomi shrieked, jumping. Ty caught her, they exchanged an awkward glance, and he set her down.

"Fartor," Ty said. "How come you're not on the moon?"

"It lost the flatulent atmosphere I had wound up giving it," the villain replied. "I forgot that it had no magnetic field. So I rebuilt Fartzilla and went back to Earth. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to think up a new scheme in months."

"That explains why I haven't seen you yet," Naomi said. "But what do you mean by 'this isn't his'?"

"The lair is not Peptos'. It belongs to the A.C.E."

"Ace?" Jetpack asked.

"Association of Clarksburg Evildoers. Two months ago, Lance Boil thought it would be a good idea if we villains stopped fighting amongst each other and pool our efforts to beat you Grossologists. So we built this lair. The hexagonal rooms you've probably seen are our quarters (the design was Insectiva's idea, I may add), and we commute to our regular lairs to plot."

"So...what about Peptos?"

"He came here three weeks ago, claiming he wanted to join us. He had a mind-control device he said he was going to use on you to prevent you from stopping us. It turned out he had other things in mind - he set the device on us instead."

"How come you're not zombified too?" Naomi asked.

"The mutations that allow me to breathe methane also rendered me immune to mind control. I tried to stop Peptos myself, but I couldn't, and that's how I ended up here."

"Well, we're goners," Ty said. The others looked at him, surprised he hadn't spoken for a while. "The villains can't fight him, we can't fight him, and now Peptos is going to rule the world. What kind of hero am I? I can't do anything right. Maybe I shouldn't have survived..."

"Ty, what are you saying?" Naomi cried. Ty looked at her. "This isn't like you at all," she continued. "Lab Rat has told me what you and Abby have been doing. You've done the impossible before, and you can do it again. Please, Ty," she pleaded, starting to tear up, "do it for us. Or at least...do it for me."

Ty started processing what she had said when he was interrupted by a blaring "T-minus three minutes until launch."

"No," Ty said, standing taller now. "Not today, Pepto-bismol. I'll find a way to get out of this mess."

"But how?" Jetpack asked. "That thingy on your neck can't be broken off."

"Jetpack, you can shoot hydrochloric acid out of your butt," Naomi pointed out.

"No I can't! I need one more bleurgh!"

"And I know where to get it," Ty said. He reached over and pressed a button on Fartor's suit, which retracted the glass shield. Now exposed to air, Fartor got sick, and vomited onto the floor.

"Never do that again!" Fartor snapped, putting the shield back up.

Jetpack ate the vomit. Once he was finished, his abdomen began to glow. He turned around, arched his abdomen up, and shot a stream of acid at the lock of the door. It dissolved. Ty bent over, allowing a few tiny drops to land on the power inhibitor, the acid etching a crack. Ty's body glowed a little, and he turned himself into a blackish-orange ooze, slithered out of the collar, and reformed into his complete body, slimesuit and all (yeah, Ty's clothes modify with his powers).

Ty kicked down the door, walked out of the cell, and punched the door to the chamber. It snapped off its hinges under the force of Ty's superstrength, and fell to the ground.

"Let's go!" Ty commanded.

Naomi blushed. "I knew he could do it," she said to herself.


	11. A Giant Snowball Saves the Day

The four made sure no one was paying attention. They saw Peptos, outside what would be his quarters. "This is going quite well," they heard him say. "I think I'll make a pot of coffee to congratulate myself." He opened the door to his quarters, walked in, and slammed the door behind him.

"That was convenient," Jetpack commented.

They raced over to the control panels, trying to find a button that would abort the mission. They did not. "Peptos must have anticipated this. There's nothing that will let us cancel the launch," Ty said. "Looks like I'm going to have to do this the other way: disassemble it myself."

"T-minus four...three...two...one." The ceiling of the ACE lair opened. The rocket launched.

"Yep, I need to do this on my own." As the rocket flew up, Ty threw his arm at it. His arm extended, moving until his hand grabbed one of the rocket's fins. Ty pulled himself onto The Vomit Comet, and the rocket disappeared into the air.

(A slow trumpet piece, "Ty's Theme", begins to play. Someday I will make that instrumental.)

While the rocket ascended into the air, Ty pulled himself up the rocket's body. He looked down at Clarksburg.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the lab, the rest of the team looked on as the rocket climbed higher and higher, worried that they would not be able to save the world.

* * *

The rocket reached the upper atmosphere. Ty could somehow breathe just fine, and he could see the planet below.

Earth looked small now, a small world where there were really no noticeable differences.

The rocket stopped. It turned so its side faced the Earth.

Ty knew what was going to happen. The rocket would begin replicating and then spreading the sludge inside.

Ty needed to stop the rocket. With a morph. A seriously huge morph.

He let go of The Vomit Comet. His body was enveloped in light as he morphed, as it always happened whenever he did.

* * *

His body turned into icy rock, then converted its shape into a lumpy, potato-like form. His body began growing, growing, assumed enough mass so its gravity pulled it into a spherical shape, then kept growing still.

The transformation finished. The light dissolved. Ty was now a huge, bluish-gray object.

* * *

Harvey and Petunia were watching the news.

"There's a new moon in the sky, for an eight-hundred-mile-wide dwarf planet has appeared about fifty miles above the surface," the anchorwoman was saying. "At the same time, a rocket whose name appears to be The Vomit Comet has also - wait, it looks like the rocket's collided with the dwarf planet! It's gone!"

Petunia's cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Archer?" Naomi asked from the other end, calling on her grossometer.

"Oh, Naomi. This is a surprise. Why are you calling?"

"Have you seen the object in the sky? Or on the news?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"That's your son. He's alive, and he's got superpowers."

Petunia was flabbergasted.

* * *

"Got it," Ty said to himself.

Then he remembered about Earth's gravity, which yanked him down. "Demorph...demorph!" Ty said to himself, panicking a little. Luckily, before he could collide with anything, building, tree, planet, or otherwise, he dissolved into a flash of light, turning back into a human.

Ty fell through the open ACE door just before it closed fully, and landed on the launchpad with a _SPLAT!_ The force of the fall caused him to go into ooze-mode again. He quickly reformed his body.

"Hey Ni, who are you talking to?" Ty asked.

"Your mom."

"Can I?..."

"Sure. She's your mother."

Ty took the grossometer and placed it against his ear. "Hi Mom. I didn't die."

* * *

Petunia fainted.


	12. El Fight Scene

"Maybe I should have called another time," Ty said, handing Naomi back her grossometer. "I think my mom fainted."

"How shocking," Fartor smirked.

They heard a door open and looked up to see Peptos carrying a cup of coffee. The supervillain took a sip from it, and on noticing the Grossologists had escaped, spat it out.

"It's over, Pepto-bismol," Ty said. "Your rocket's been destroyed, and we're ready to take you to prison."

"Foolish boy," Peptos sneered. "You can't stop me. Not when I have _an army of villains under my control_!" To the zombefied villains, he said, "Get them!"

The zombefied villains raced towards the Grossologists (and Fartor).

"New plan," Naomi said. "Fartor, try to disable the mind control device. We'll handle these guys."

"You don't have to tell me twice," he replied, hovering out of the fight.

Making his way to the room where the mind-controlled Abby was standing in front of, Fartor hurriedly opened the door, revealing the large device behind it, in a white room filled with computers. Extending his mechanical arms out of his back, Fartor set to work trying to rip the device apart.

The mind-controlled Abby was about to go in after him, but then noticed the commotion in the center of the lair. Deciding that was her primary objective, she headed down to deal with it.

* * *

A mind-controlled Insectiva sicced a mutated, oversized stinkbug on the Grossologists. Ty and Naomi got down as the massive true bug sprayed a cloud of stench over them; Jetpack did not get down, but did not react to getting sprayed.

"No one could survive that smell!" Ty exclaimed.

"Jetpack doesn't have a sense of smell!" Naomi responded.

Jetpack snarled. Well, he didn't have teeth, so snarling was pretty hard to do. "Back off, sapsucker!" he snapped to the stinkbug. His fingers, which were the same shade of dark brown as the rest of his body and shaped like human fingers, suddenly changed into silvery claws. He raised his hands into the air, and double-slashed the stinkbug's head, killing it. The mutated bug slumped onto the ground, goo oozing from the eight gashes on its head.

"You have CLAWS?!" Ty yelled as he and Naomi got back up.

"Yup. They can cut Kevlar, though why I would need to be able to slice open a book is up to the question," the robot replied.

"Kevlar's a type of plastic," Naomi corrected him. "It's bulletproof."

"Ohhh...that makes a lot more sense now."

Sloppy Joe, under the influence of the mind control, brought his fist down onto Ty. Or he would have, had Ty not activated his duplication power and split into two Ty's at the last minute. The clones planted a double-kick on the villain's chest, bringing him down. The duplicates merged back into one Ty.

Mind-controlled Darko Crevasse commanded a swarm of bats to attack. Naomi dodged it, pulled out her goopshooter, and slimed the bats, trapping them on the ground. Naomi shot another blast at Darko, knocking him over.

The Scab Fairy, mind-controlled, tried to immobilize Jetpack with the scabs thrown from her staff. Jetpack flew out of range, hitting the blasts with acid shot from his rear. Ty transformed his right arm into a katana, slicing the Scab Fairy's staff in two.

Another blast of goop. This time, from a mind-controlled Abby. Realizing it was his sister (who was a formidable opponent already), Ty decided to avoid fighting her, and focus on fighting other villains.

* * *

"Curse that Chlorofield," Fartor muttered. He had ripped into the mind-control device, down to its mainframe, and it still wouldn't turn off. Having put it back together to try and find another way of perception, Fartor heard Naomi yell "Ty, look out!"

He turned around to see Peptos use the levitation beam on his hoverscooter to lift up a steel beam and fling it at Ty. Ty opened his mouth...which opened far wider than a human mouth should...and bit down on the middle of the beam, cleaving it in two.

Fartor saw Ty chew the bit of the beam that had broken off into his mouth (somehow, it fit). Ty swallowed it.

Realizing he had borne witness to one of Ty's superpowers - one that could save the day - Fartor changed tactics.

"Ty!" the villain yelled, dragging the mind-control device out with his mechanical arms. "You have to eat it!"

"That's not very nice," Ty called back.

"No! Eat the mind control device. It's the only way to destroy it."

"Oh."

Fartor shoved the device off the ledge the room he had found it in was on.

Ty caught it with his tongue, which extended several feet across the lair and wrapped itself around the device. He pulled his tongue back into his mouth, without any sign that the device was really larger than his head. He chewed it up, swallowed, and burped.

A small explosion. Ty looked down at his abdomen, seeing nothing except his spine. "Oh, great." The flesh that had once been there regrew to its original dimensions, and somehow the missing part of Ty's slimesuit had also come back. "Nevermind."

The mind-controlled villains stopped advancing. There was a series of popping noises, as the villains' eyes returned to normal as they blinked.

Abby was the last person to return to normal. "Where am I?" she asked herself, not noticing her fellow Grossologists (including a very-alive Ty) were there too.

"A.C.E. headquarters," Arachnida told her.

Abby scooted over to the side a little.


	13. Defeat at the (Extra) Hands of Ty Archer

Peptos tried to zoom away on his hoverscooter on noticing that his army of villains had free will again.

"PEPTOS!" called an angry voice. Peptos around turned to see Lance Boil, who was so mad he was redder than he normally was.

"When you joined the ACE, you promised us you wouldn't use the mind-control device on other villains!" Lance snapped.

"It was part of the plan," Peptos replied weakly.

"Pfft. Yeah, a plan to destroy life as we know it and make a world straight out of our nightmares," Insectiva retorted. "Seriously, even we aren't that evil."

"Shoulda known he was a supervillain the whole time," Sloppy Joe muttered.

"Joe, dearest, you couldn't have, he fooled all of us."

"I guess you're right. Heck, if it weren't for Larry, we'd have all been goners."

"Well, I try," Fartor said humbly.

"Soo...shall we?" Lance asked his companions in evil.

"Yes, let's," Sarah Senia replied, cracking her knuckles. The villains glared at Peptos, with grins meaning they wanted to inflict serious harm to him.

"Let's not be rash about this..." Peptos said. "Oh look, what's that over there?"

All the villains turned their heads. It bought Peptos time to rev up his hoverscooter and zip off. The villains turned around, but it was too late. Peptos was speeding towards the lair's back entrance.

"So long, suckers!" he cackled. "I'll just have to build my OWN army, build ANOTHER Vomit Comet, and take over the world _once and for all_!"

Abby, who was trapped in the middle of the villain crowd, felt helpless. She had been snared by that mind-control device, and she couldn't do anything about it. Not then, not now.

"He's getting away, he's getting away," Abby heard Jetpack say. Relieved that he was okay, Abby turned to where Jetpack was standing...and saw two people with him. Was that...Naomi? Why was she wearing a slime suit?

But when Abby looked closer at the other person, she gasped.

"No, he's not," Ty said. "Not while I still have my powers."

He jumped, his left arm extending up and up until his hand reached a pipe on the ceiling. Grabbing it, he pulled himself up as his arm length decreased, then extended his right arm and did the same, swinging forth like a monkey.

"Ty's...alive?" Abby asked herself in disbelief.

* * *

Peptos zipped along on his hoverscooter, and heard something like footsteps. He turned around to see Ty inching closer.

Peptos fired a blast of electricity from his hoverscooter, right at Ty's abdomen. In the split second that followed, Ty temporarily separated his upper from his lower half, let the blast through without harming him, and then melded his body back together.

Peptos muttered something, then a hand shot out that he narrowly dodged. He saw that Ty had sprouted a second left arm and had just tried to punch him. Ty sprouted an extra right arm and hit the hoverscooter's controls, smashing the fixture that let loose the electric blasts and the levitation beam.

Peptos turned around, ramped up the speed, and zoomed off faster than Ty could keep up.

"It's morph time," Ty said. He reabsorbed his extra arms, let go of the pipes, and his body became enveloped in light...

* * *

Peptos opened the hatch, finding himself in a desolate part of Clarksburg. "I'm free!" he exclaimed. He cackled evilly...then there was a rumbling noise...and Peptos found himself pinned to the hatch by the bow of a 200-foot yacht.

"Peptos," the boat said in Ty's voice, "you're under arrest."

Peptos let out a pained grunt.


	14. Reunion of the Archer Duo

Abby watched Peptos get hauled away in a police van. "I can't believe I didn't get to fight him," she grumbled.

"Don't worry, he'll probably escape and you'll get your chance," came a voice. Abby turned around to see Paige, decked out in a pink slimesuit.

"Paige, why are you-"

"The Director sent me over to tell the officers it was his idea for sending those three over," Paige said, gesturing to the other Grossologists, who were talking to The Detective.

"You're a Grossologist. YOU, of all people."

"We're actually a lot more alike than you think." This caught Abby offguard. "Listen, I was an outcast in middle school. When I entered ninth grade, I thought being 'popular' would help my social life, but it didn't. I'm really a nice person, Abby, I just didn't want to be alone anymore."

"What about those two girls who you hang out with?"

"Alex and Sam were just going along with my thinking. They're like me, and we're like you; we may act like snobs, but really we're just as big dorks as you and your brother." Something caught her eye. "Speaking of which..."

* * *

"The truce is off, Fartor," Ty said to the villain just before Fartor returned to the ACE headquarters.

"Just as well," Fartor replied. "For what would a villain be without a hero to fight?"

Fartor pressed a button that expanded the manhole so he could fit down it, and left.

"Wish I had known about that button," Jetpack said.

"There's a lot you don't know, bro," Ty said. His eyes widened. "Did I just-"

Naomi approached Ty, interrupting him.

"You did it," she said, smiling. "You saved the world."

"Eh, it was nothing. It's all part of the job description."

Naomi laughed. "You know, I think you're in need of a little reward. C'mere," she said, and just before Ty could figure out what was happening, Naomi pulled him close and kissed him. Ty was at first very surprised, but he relaxed and enjoyed the kiss.

Paige snapped a picture with her Grossometer. "That's a keeper," she said, grinning.

The kiss ended. "Whoa," Ty said, a bit catatonic.

Naomi giggled. Then she said, "Oh. Well, I'd better give you two some space." She stepped aside, and Ty then noticed his sister was there.

"Hey Abby," Ty said.

Abby stood there, taking it in. Her brother, who she had put up with for sixteen years, a brother who she thought she had lost forever, was standing in front of her, alive. Unable to hold back any longer, she rushed forward and wrapped him into a bear hug.

"I missed you so much," she cried.

"Me too, sis. Me too," Ty replied calmly.

"This is my fault. I...killed you."

"You made a mistake, Abby. That's only human. Besides, I never died."

Abby broke the embrace.

"I got superpowers," he said. He sprouted an extra pair of arms, which turned into small rocket launchers, and set a few fireworks into the air.

"How did this happen?" Abby asked.

"Long story," Naomi said.

"Then let's hear it," Paige said. "Oh, by the way, Chester's not possessed anymore."

Abby started listening intently, as everyone told her their story, of how Team Grossology had grown to what it was now.

A group filled with wonder, amazement, and toilet humor.


	15. Epilogue

**AN: This fic is set on June 14, 2014.**

* * *

 **Two days later...**

Chester was taking a walk in the park. Kid Rot hadn't been in control of his body for over a month, sure, but he still liked knowing that the plant life he loved would no longer decompose under his touch.

Chester bumped into a familiar redhead. "Hey Abby."

Abby didn't respond.

"You okay?"

She sighed. "The papers came in."

"What papers?"

"Mom and Dad got so fond of Jetpack that they adopted him. Now I have two little boogers to look after."

Chester laughed. "I wouldn't say that. You'll get used to him eventually. And Ty's not so bad himself. He _did_ earn the Grossologist's Medal of Honor."

"Yeah, for being a mutant." She paused, and added, "To tell you the truth, I'm kinda jealous of him. Not only is he the most powerful person on Earth, but he's in a relationship, and I'm still single."

"You'll find the right person someday," Chester said.

Their eyes met briefly.

 _Could it be?_ Chester thought. _Kid Rot made it seem like I was obsessed with her when he possessed me...but could I actually like her?_

Meanwhile, Abby was thinking on similar lines. _I don't believe it. Could I...actually be in love with him?_

Their thoughts were cut short by the noise of Chester's grossometer. He pulled it out and opened it, revealing a new, much slimmer design with additional screens.

"Grossologists! Lance Boil is trying to flood the city streets with pus!" the Director exclaimed from the other end.

"The villains don't wait, do they?" Chester asked.

"Crime doesn't rest, you know." The transmission ended.

"Some way to spend my summer vacation," Abby grumbled as they raced for the nearest entrance to the lab.

"Are you kidding me? We LOVE this job," Chester replied.

"True..."

They met up with their teammates and suited up.

Now, Team Grossology was ready to take on any villain, conventional or supervillain.

The end.

* * *

 **AN: Coming soon...the bloopers!**


	16. Many Mutations: Bloopers! :P

**AN: My dialogue will be in bold.**

 **Just so you know, I am a furry. Specifically, a highly-anthropomorphized** ** _Brachiosaurus_** **. My studio, Nerdinator Studios, where my fanfictions are produced by the actual characters in the show, is staffed by other dinosaur furries. Read my profile for more info.**

 **Also, in my universe, making fanfictions is a profitable business venture, and chapters are delivered to subscribers like newspapers are.**

* * *

"That would be AWESOME," Ty said. "Unusual, but - WAUGH!" He slipped on the floor and fell on his back.

Abby began laughing.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

Lab Rat was about to explain what he meant when a noise came from somewhere in the Gag Lab - the sound of something being knocked over.

The camera fell on his head, taking him down.

"I'm okay," Lab Rat said from the floor.

Paige and Jetpack began laughing from somewhere offscreen.

 **"CUT! Tech crew! We need less top-heavy cameras."**

* * *

Ty stepped on the most corroded segment of the bridge. It didn't swing back like it was supposed to, and Ty ended up doing an unintentional split.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"He fell fifty feet into toxic waste!" Abby snapped.

"Fifty-one feet, actually," Lab Rat said calmly.

"How do you even know that?"

Lab Rat shrugged.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Okay, hold up," Abby said, getting the adults' attention. "You guys _know each other_? And more importantly-" she turned to her parents - "you guys _were_ Grossfludula - wait, what?"

Everyone began laughing.

 **"CUT!" I said, before collapsing from laughter myself.**

* * *

There was a thump at the front door of the Archer residence, followed by the sound of locks being unlocked.

There was a snapping noise.

"The key broke," Jetpack said from the other side of the door.

 **"CUT!" I picked up a phone from the wall and dialed Stena, my secretary (who's also a _Stegosaurus_ furry). "Stena, could you call up a locksmith? Something went wrong during Many Mutations."**

"Right away, Sir," she replied from the other end.

* * *

The door opened.

Ty walked into the room.

"Hey guys!" he said cheerfully.

Everyone started laughing.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Don't worry, I brought it along just in case," Jetpack said. He opened the panel, revealing a compartment built into his chest. Out of it he pulled...a turnip?

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Don't worry, I brought it along just in case," Jetpack said. He opened the panel, revealing a compartment built into his chest. Out of it he pulled...a bench?

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Don't worry, I brought it along just in case," Jetpack said. He opened the panel, revealing a compartment built into his chest. Out of it he pulled...an SUV?

 **"CUT!"**

"We should try shooting this scene another time," Petunia commented. "I think Hammerspace is acting up today."

 **"Good idea."**

* * *

A dark shape burst out of the water, flying higher and higher. It flew up to the skylight...but only its head went through.

"Ow," Dragon-Ty said.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Odd," Abby said. "They couldn't have disappeared...Jetpack?" she asked, suddenly getting a glazed look in her eyes.

"Yeah?" the robot asked.

"Is it just me, or do you see rainbows?...Wait a minute, there ARE rainbows!"

Jetpack turned to look at the back wall to see that there were a bunch of graffitied rainbows on the back wall.

 **"CUT! Okay, who did this?"**

"I believe it's another of Evilco's attempts to put us out of business by preventing us from completing our fanfictions on time," Bruce, the _Australovenator_ furry who directs my Grossology fanfics, explained.

 **"Oh, not THEM again..."**

* * *

Jetpack nodded. "I'm Jetpack. I used to be your jetpack."

"That sounds redundant," Ty said.

"No, it isn't tacky at all!"

"That's not what redundant means."

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"There's a lot more than those," Lab Rat replied, pulling up a file from the DNA scan. "According to this, you also have mind control resistance, superstrength, duplication, the ability to detach body parts painlessly, spontaneous regeneration of lost body parts (including your brain), spontaneous generation and absorption of extra body parts...crud, I forgot the rest of my line."

Paige started laughing.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"I do," Ty said. He pulled out a piece of paper, uncapped a black marker, and scribbled furiously. When he was done, he recapped the marker and showed the multiple diagrams he had drawn on the paper.

It was a bunch of doodles of a giant squid wearing comically oversized sunglasses.

"Oops. Wrong drawing," Ty said.

Naomi started laughing.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Jetpack, you can shoot hydrochloric acid out of your butt," Naomi pointed out.

Silence.

Everyone started laughing from the absurdity of the line.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

Ty kicked down the door, walked out of the cell, and punched the door to the chamber.

The door didn't budge.

"My superstrength isn't working today," Ty said quietly.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

"Hey Ni, who are you talking to?" Ty asked.

"Your mom!" a random background character shouted.

"Well, I'm actually talking to your mom..." Naomi trailed off.

 **"CUT! Save it for New Heroes, Chuck."**

"I don't get to have any fun," Chuck grumbled.

* * *

"Let's not be rash about this..." Peptos said. "Oh look, what's that over there?"

All the villains turned their heads. It bought Peptos time to rev up his hoverscooter and zip off. The villains turned around, but it was too late. Peptos was speeding towards the lair's back entrance.

Peptos wasn't paying attention to where he was going, and ended up crashing into the wall.

 **"CUT!"**

"Medic!" Bruce called to the stage hands.

* * *

"The truce is off, Fartor," Ty said to the villain just before Fartor returned to the ACE headquarters.

"Just as well," Fartor replied. "For what would a villain be without a hero to fight?"

Fartor pressed a button that expanded the manhole so he could fit down it...but when he went down it, he got stuck.

 **"CUT!"**

* * *

 **AN: And that's all, folks. See you next fanfic! ~T. Nerdinator.**


End file.
